Reader Food Diary: Lindsay’s Food & Spend

Hi! My name is Lindsay. I live in Columbus, Ohio with my husband, Tom, and our three kids, Brody (7), Mia(5) and Ryder(2). We love to travel, visit new states, and go hiking. We eat the majority of our meals at home. Tom and I each pack a lunch for work five days a week and Brody and Mia pack 4 out of 5 days. We started our real food journey a few years ago when I stumbled upon the 100 Days of Real Food blog . We took the pledge and we have been going strong since!

My Reader Diary submission was selected to be featured so here is a list of everything I ate and spent on food for an entire week!

Day 1

Breakfast: Ricotta scrambled eggs with avocado, grapefruit, English Breakfast tea with honey.Lunch: Vegetable minestrone and an apple with peanut butter.Snack: Apricot Fruit & Nuts.Dinner: Veggie noodle soup and a simple side salad (lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, red wine vinegar and oil).Drinks: Water, Coffee with maple syrup and a splash of milk.Groceries: $130.44 for family of 5

Day 2

Breakfast: Oatmeal with blueberries and English Breakfast Tea with honey.

Day 6

Breakfast: Ricotta scrambled eggs with blood oranges, English Breakfast Tea with honey.Lunch: Tortilla stew with blood oranges.Snack: A handful of salt and pepper pistachios.Dinner: Sandwiches from a local deli.

Reader Diary: Final Thoughts

For the week, I spent $173.36 which included groceries for my family of 5 and a few meals out.

As I was keeping track, I realized how repetitive my meals and snacks are. When we grocery shop, we typically just shop for dinner items and then eat leftovers for lunch. It makes packing lunch relatively easy. We also make soup once a week and then freeze the leftovers so that we have something quick to throw in our lunches. I got a few different cookbooks for Christmas and I am currently cooking my way through them. Four of the dinner recipes were new to me and they are all keepers. I would also, like to add that we get our meat from a local farm. We receive a delivery of frozen meat once a month. It’s roughly $100/month. I did not include that in my food diary because we are in week 3 of our current meat supply. If I added in the meat that we used it would make our total around $225.

Posts may contain affiliate links. If you purchase a product through an affiliate link, your cost will be the same but 100 Days of Real Food will automatically receive a small commission. Your support is greatly appreciated and helps us spread our message!

My Cookbooks

I’m so excited to share all the info with you about the three cookbooks in my 100 Days of Real Food series. Each cookbook is unique and features its own content, from breaking down the science behind grains, to providing…